Strangely, I have never noticed this hotel although it has been around in the very centre of Stockholm for at least eight years. Today, we decided to sample the breakfast.
First, a general observation: spending time in Southeast Asia over the past few years has opened my eyes to one interesting difference compared with Europe. A top hotel in Asia will provide local and regional food for breakfast, as well as western. This is rarely the case in equivalent top hotels in Europe. I don’t know why, although I assume it is purely a cost-related issue and a feeling that the number of guests who would prefer non-western cuisine simply is not large enough to make it worthwhile. I could be wrong.
Now, for this breakfast. One of the themes I consistently go on about, is that bigger is not necessarily better. This is an excellent illustration thereof. The buffet is not particularly large, but it is well balanced with a wide range of tasty dishes. In other words, good choice of vegetables, cold cuts, cheese as well as both salmon and herring (this is Sweden, after all!). A nice hot bar, with waffles and pancakes, good scrambled eggs and crispy bacon, as well as other standard offerings (beans, hard-boiled and fried eggs, tomatoes et cetera). An excellent choice of fruit, both fresh and compotes. Home baked Swedish cinnamon buns, always a plus. On the negative side, the tea is bags only, but it is the hotels own blend which is very nice indeed. One strange aspect is that there is neither normal butter nor normal milk, only lactose-free. You can get normal milk if you ask for it. While offering lactose-free products is of course very worthy, I do think that the alternative should be there without having to ask for it. If normal milk and butter were automatically available, I would have given this 9.5/10; as it is, we end up at 9/10. However, as readers of this blog know, this still means an absolutely excellent, first-class breakfast.